Manifesto to the Ukrainian People with an Ultimatum to the Ukrainian Rada¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter reproduces the manifesto and ultimatum issued by the Council of People’s Commissars to the Ukrainian Rada on 3 December 1917, immediately following the October Revolution. Its core argument is that the Ukrainian Rada, despite its nationalist rhetoric, was pursuing a bourgeois, counter-revolutionary policy that objectively aided the enemies of Soviet power. The document begins by reaffirming the Soviet government’s unconditional recognition of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and its right to national self-determination, including secession from Russia. This concession is presented as consistent with the principles of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets and the socialist government’s stance toward Finland. However, the text immediately pivots to a devastating indictment: the Rada, under cover of national phrases, has engaged in a double-dealing bourgeois policy that precludes recognition of it as a legitimate representative of the working and exploited masses of Ukraine.
Three specific accusations are levelled. First, the Rada unilaterally ordered the withdrawal of Ukrainian units from the common front, disorganising the war effort against the Central Powers. Second, it began disarming Soviet troops stationed in Ukraine. Third, and most gravely, the Rada supported the Cadet-Kaledin counter-revolutionary revolt by allowing Kaledin’s troops to cross Ukrainian territory while refusing transit to anti-Kaledin revolutionary forces. The text argues that even if the Rada were recognised as the legitimate government of an independent bourgeois Ukrainian republic, this betrayal of the revolution would compel the Soviet government to declare war. The ultimatum demands that the Rada cease disorganising the front, refuse transit to counter-revolutionary forces without the Commander-in-Chief’s sanction, assist revolutionary troops against Kaledin, and return arms to disarmed Soviet regiments. Failure to answer satisfactorily within 48 hours would be deemed a state of open war.
The historical context is the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution, when the Ukrainian Rada—dominated by bourgeois and petty-bourgeois nationalists—moved toward independence not from national conviction (it had accepted autonomy under the Provisional Government) but from class opposition to workers’ and peasants’ power. The polemic is directed against nationalist obscurantism that masks class collaboration with counter-revolution. The text explicitly argues against the Rada’s claim that the Don and Kuban have autonomous rights, exposing this as a cover for Kaledin’s counter-revolution. The final portion, noted as written by Trotsky, sharpens the ultimatum into a direct challenge. The Rada’s rejection of the ultimatum, as the editor’s note indicates, led it into alliance with German imperialism.